Look Abroad When You Have an American Trendless Market

You can't judge this market by the headlines. But India is showing much greater potential.

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- You've seen all seen the headlines: "Market Hits a New All-Time High." But you cannot judge the market by the headlines. Headlines can be quite deceiving. If you look at the chart of the Dow below, it is trading barely above where it was trading in January.

The Nasdaq has been a wilder ride but equally disappointing. It has barely budged since late January and is also trading close to where it was at the beginning of the year.

This is why, despite headlines to the contrary, I describe this market as "trendless." The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq only tell part of the story. The internals of the market are much worse than market indices suggest, especially for last year's leading stocks and sectors.

There are also attractive opportunities in Brazil, Mexico and South America. Here in the U.S., given that we are in a trendless market, I favor low P/E names and dividend payers over momentum and high valuation segments of the market.

Low P/E semiconductor stocks like Lam Research (LRCX) and Qualcomm (QCOM) are a couple of good examples. I also like many names such as Continental Resources (CLR), Carrizo Oil (CRZO) and Cimarex Energy (XEC).